Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Half-Life 2 Episode 3 speculation*Ep 2 Spoilers abound*

I have my own ideas about what we might see in Half Life 2 Episode 3 and I wanted to put them up in my own space.

Lets start with a review of things revealed by the storyline so far:

The Borealis is an Aperture Science research ship.

Aperture Science is behind the portal gun in the game "Portal"

It vanished mysteriously while in drydock and even a part of the drydock disappeared with it meaning it was either vaporized or teleported. Since Mossman did find the ship it must have been teleported - presumably by technology similar to the Portal gun.

The ship is now located somewhere in the Arctic wastes.

Chell was NOT located in the arctic wastes when she escaped from GLaDOS and so is unlikely to make an appearance in person.

Eli was VERY concerned about the technology on the Borealis which makes sense as the Combine does not have any kind of local teleportation technology - yet.

Even the teleport technology that Eli and the others from the resistance have developed requires a transmitter and receiver device to make a controlled teleport. The Aperture Science tech bypasses those requirements.

Eli is now dead. Get over it already. He's gone.

The superportal is now closed, but there are Advisors still on Earth who will likely begin working on establishing a new connection to the Combine homeworld.

Kleiner's pet headcrab Heady is probably dead after having sneaked into the warhead of the missile. Though I doubt anyone but Kleiner will care about that.

Despite appearances, the G-Man is not human. He has the ability not only to jump around in space, but to distort space and time. On at least a couple of occasions, he appears like a vision - visible only to Freeman (beginning of HL2 and Ep2 when the Vorts are healing Alyx).

The G-Man and the Vorts do not share the same motives, but appear to have the Combine as a common enemy.

The Vorts appear to be sincere in their alliance with humans while the G-Man seems to have someone else's interests in mind.

The Advisors are more than just props in the game engine and in fact can be killed with some noclip action (you can even shoot them without noclip from the interior of the hangar before you step on the lift with Eli and Alyx as the wall they are hiding behind is not solid).

This strongly suggests that at least one physical battle with the Advisors is in Gordon's future, but poses an interesting problem as they are very tough to kill and Gordon has always been totally defenseless against their powerful telekinesis.

Dr Mossman's status is unknown. She may be at the Borealis or not and she may or may not be a captive of the Combine.

The Combine have been to the Borealis including soldiers and hunters.

Now for my speculations and predictions:

The game likely starts with Alyx and Gordon traveling to the Borealis in the helicopter.

I'm sure they will bring some assistance. Barney, Dog and Vortigants are likely candidates.

Perhaps the Vorts can shield Gordon from the telekinesis of the Advisors somehow.

Before the chopper can reach the Borealis, it will be shot down with Gordon, Alyx and at least one of their helpers barely pulling themselves out of the wreckage.

They'll find themselves on unstable cracked glacial wastes and will likely face headcrabs, zombies or whatever on the way on foot to the Borealis.

Once there, they probably need to deal with a guard force of Combine stationed outside the ship.

After they can make their way inside, they'll find some kind of evidence left by Dr Mossman revealing where to go next.

The ship is booby-trapped which is the only reason that the Combine haven't already retrieved the technology they're after, but means Freeman and company have to watch their step and split up on occasion.

At some point, they encounter the Portal gun and confiscate it, but instead of Gordon getting it, Alyx takes possession of it (after all, Gordon always gets to "have fun" with the gravity gun and now it's time for Alyx to get to play with cool tech). Besides that, it keeps the game from being "Portal 1.5". For a few brief moments, Alyx trades the Portal Gun with the gravity gun for some areas that need an HEV suit to get though and also need the portal gun. Once past such obstacles, Alyx gives the gravity gun back and takes back the portal gun (which she does use on occasion, but only when needed).

Before locating the Borealis teleport technology, they probably have to defeat at least one advisor and Gordon will need to have some immunity or a way to cripple the advisor's telekinesis.

They succeed at some point in destroying the Borealis and perhaps recovering the Portal gun in the process (using it to escape the explosion I bet).

At that point most or all of the advisors still on Earth have converged on the Borealis and are killed in the explosion giving Earth a bit of relief from the Combine.

This is the end of Gordon's role as a player-controlled character in the Half-Life series.

Why? With the death of Eli and considering how much Gordon has done, he will be selected to take charge of the human resistance and another character will take the front-line in Half-Life 3 (Barney? Chell? Dog? Dr Kleiner? who knows).

Not only that, He and Alyx will finally have a chance to explore their relationship and well... . They're almost certainly destined to be a couple.

(edit) G-Man will most certainly make an appearance in this episode and we will learn more about who he (it?) is and what his purpose is in this whole mess.

(edit) Perhaps we'll learn that G-Man is an agent of a force far more powerful and sinister than the Combine.

11 comments:

it appears to me that the portal gun experienced some wild reaction when it somehow had contact with water ON BOARD THE SHIP or WHILE TRANSPORTING IT IN OR OUT OF THE SHIP. Something knocks my mind whenever i hear glados instruct chell about the portal gun i.e she says something like 'dont let the gun submerge into water'blah..blah. So, all i'm trying to say is that the portal gun itself IS in the boreallis...it should be :-P

o, and adding more to my above comment; as valve guys have pointed out that ep3 will put an end to the current story arc, i extrapolate that gman WILL die at the end of ep3 but not before revealing that the greater force behind him is gonna come into play now....

Sure. I'm open to the idea that a mishap with the portal gun caused the Borealis to be teleported. It doesn't really align with the way the portal gun works, but you never know.As far as G-Man dying... I wonder if it's even possible for him to be killed. I think Valve will keep him around to keep some of the mystery of the Half-Life universe going. I'm betting we'll never know exactly WHAT he is.

It seems to me that at the end of this episode BOTH Gordon and Alyx are taken into custody by Gman. In episode 2, the "vortessence" of Alyx was linked to Gordon's. Gman also indicated that he found Alyx to be potentially useful. Gordon would probably be more willing to go along with Gman if Alyx got to go along with them, and the two work well as a team. But I think there's no way Gman will let them go: they both know too much. Also, expect Adrian Shepherd to make an appearance. Now that the Gman has lost control of Gordon, he needs a new agent. He's probably going to end up taking the portal gun from Gordon/Alyx.

Last thing GMan asked Gordon to do is to safely escort Alyx to White Forest. Which he did - I'm sure it's irrelevant to GMan whether Gordon was going to do that anyways - GMan tends to place Gordon into situations where it's in his best interest to do the GMan's bidding. GMan was stopped by the Vorts at the beginning of Ep 1, but he already seems to have a new plan in motion. Personally, I think that GMan may appear at the beginning of Ep 3 and tell Gordon to retrieve rather than to destroy the technology at the Borealis. This will be an interesting contrast to what Eli says and is also consistent. Unforseen Consequences - Eli has already stated he regrets accepting the "specimen" from GMan at Black Mesa. So now we have Eli and GMan at with differing viewpoints and Eli clearly knows more about GMan than he had a chance to tell Gordon. I'm not sure Adrian fits into this storyline at this point except maybe as a replacement for Barney. It makes more sense to me to continue his story as "Blue-Shift 2" or episode 2 or something. Maybe we'll see Adrian as the protagonist again in Half-Life 3 (again, Vavle says that Gordon's adventure will be done after Ep3 - though I'm sure he'll still be an active character in the Half-Life storyline).

I think that with the decade or two gap between hl and hl2 Gordon will be too old for a half life 3 (he is already 37-47 years old). This may mean more episodes or the end of the Half Life series "Sniffle". The possibility of a Half Life 3 would require immediate continuation from the point after the last hl2 episode which would make it pretty much the same game and not allow valve to develope the concept further (such as and updated physics engine and new plot devices). However the continuation of the series with main character being any of those listed above would be repetative and boring (especially barney, blue shift 2?). the only character who's eyes i would like to see the rest of the series eyes through would be Adrian Sheperd after he became a combine requite and you get to see the collapse of combine control from the inside (of course Adrian won't be fighting against the resistance due to a lack of information or some other way Adrian will end up leaving the combine and joining civil protection assuming a position in the combine, similar to that of Barney). The Gman can not be understood or it will ruin the series since his looming presence perpetuates the story and makes it seem like there is more to it than what you see (the difference between Half Life and Halo). other than what ive said the above is 100% correct however what worries me is the merging of the world of portal and half life (i hate portal with a passion). also i do not know what is taking valve so long since the entire plot and map for the borealis should be copypasta from the hyperborea chapter seen in the source leek in 2003. the only comments i can i can make at this point are thanks for reading (if you read my entire comment you are a true fan of the series) and sorry that this is so long. Vavle better not fuck this up!!!

Not sure why HL3 would have to start right at the end of HL2Ep3. After all, having a 10yr gap before the events of HL2 worked fine before. Also I don't think Gordon aged while GMan had him stashed away. Anyways, Valve already stated that HL3 would not be about Gordon. I find it likely, though that he will remain a main character in the story unless he dies or disappears at the end of Ep3 (which I would find disappointing).I would be willing to bet that should HL3 be created, it will continue the trend of FPS combined with simple puzzles to solve. I also expect an expanding of the game engine and physics. Think breakable environments, gravity fields, and better AI (both allies and enemies).Like I mentioned in my post, I have yet to play Blue Shift so I don't know Adrian Sheperd's story. I guess I should at least watch a playthrough on YouTube so I'm up to date.Borealis map leak? Is that the one I saw that has "silaeroB" on the hull? Or was that just a user-made map?Considering that I think Ep2 was even better than Ep1, while it places the bar pretty high for Ep3, it also hints that they're still likely to at least try and top Ep2.As far as GMan. Well anything goes. They may keep him around as the mysterious element after Ep3 or they may replace him with someone or something even more ominous. Too hard to tell at this point what their intentions are. Either way, I'm sure he'll continue to play a part as he's just as much "Half Life" as Chocobos are "Final Fantasy".I won't worry about the portal crossover too much. We may see some portal action in Ep3 since there's little doubt there will be encounters with Aperature Science technology, but very, very limited I think.I think it would be great if at the end of Ep3, we see Barney and Gordon kick back with a bottle of beer.

if you ever played portal the song still alive she sounded so peacefull then before.AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT glaDOS i think you know that pare when she said we will start enchining the truth in 5 4 3 2 1 it blocked here out because maybe there is a security guard making sure she doesnt give out anything about chell (the char)or who she actually is so glaDOS gave out small singular word hints so she doesnt get blocked out and i didnt know that apture labratoires was on a ship and one more thing their symblo o letter thing in front of aprure when its attached together is CAPTURE <- but they did capture anyone she is just a clone of Cave Johson's Daughter if you didn't know that. this site will inspite you go to it. its a portal site about glaDOS what a hum picture of glaDOS would look like and if i drew glaDOS i would draw here like that.http://www.game-ism.com/2008/04/04/still-alive-shes-free/

and maybe if you buy portal 2 because it is coming out maybe you get to play as chell in half life 3. and if you buy half life 3 you get to play as gordon of course as chell maybe you HAVE TO FIND GORDON TO HELP HERE maybe fordon thinks shes a new kind of zombie then she like covers herself then gord cautionsly walks toward her. so you can feel like what its like to play as both characters in that situation if chell is STILL ALIVE BELIVE ME IM STILL ALIVE STILL still alive.<- portal song.